What You Carry and Surrender No. 40

Abstract:

This critical engagement paper is intended to accompany the play What You Carry
and the solo performance text Surrender No. 40. Part one, the introduction, argues that
both texts are intended to contribute to the process of reconciliation between descendants
of settlers and Indigenous peoples in Canada, by telling the truth about this country’s
colonialist history and by making gestures towards reconciliation. Part two outlines the
six methodologies employed while writing these two texts: writing and narrative inquiry,
autobiography and/or autoethnography, new play development, historical research,
walking-as-performance, and solo or autobiographical performance. Part three discusses
two theoretical contexts of the two performance texts: trauma theory and truth and
reconciliation. Trauma theory has helped me to understand how Joseph, one of the
characters in What You Carry, has responded to the abuse he survived in residential
school; it has also been useful in thinking about the family violence Gary and Walter
experienced as well. While truth and reconciliation is not a recognized theoretical
perspective, it was in my mind while I wrote both texts and during the Muscle and Bone
performance. My hope is that, in some small way, these two texts can be part of the truth
and reconciliation process in this country—that they might help other settler descendants
understand something about Canada’s ongoing colonialist history, as writing these texts
has helped me to understand that history.

Description:

A Critical Engagement Paper Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Special Case Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Theatre, University of Regina. iv, 61 p.